Planting the Seeds of Healthy Childhood Development

A coworker once told me that he taught his young child to garden by planting seeds with her in springtime. She watched them sprout and grow and blossom into a vibrant flower bed. That inspired her to start thinking about what else she could grow. She was particularly fond of her goldfish, and imagined how much fun it would be to have a whole school of them. So, one afternoon she carefully planted her three goldfish, believing more goldfish would grow. When her father came home she was excited to show him her new goldfish garden, and he was left with the terribly difficult task of breaking the news to her that they were dead.

Obviously, the little girl was too young to understand much about the true nature of life and death, and when her goldfish died it was a very hard lesson to learn. Nevertheless, such seemingly cruel lessons about reality can contribute to the kind of healthy childhood development that will continue to sustain wellness for years to come. Understanding the various stages or phases of that development can be quite helpful to adults, too, especially those who assume responsibility for the well-being of kids. Research reveals that there are four generally accepted concepts that constitute a mature understanding of death: 1) non-functionality, 2) finality, 3) inevitability, and 4) causality.

Non-Functionality 

Until a child has a certain level of knowledge of biological principles, they may lack the ability to differentiate between livings things and inanimate objects. They may believe that cartoon characters are alive, or if the pet cat dies a child they may still refill its milk bowl, thinking it’s merely asleep.

Finality 

Children may not realize that once a living entity dies, it won’t come back to life. A parent may die, but the child keeps waiting for them to come home. The finality of death can also be hard for them to understand when they see TV shows and video games where characters die but return in a subsequent scene, appearing very much alive. 

Inevitability

Despite having learned to grasp the concepts of non-functionality and finality, a child may still have trouble believing that they are also eventually going to succumb to death. Being confronted by that possibility may be both puzzling and disturbing.

Causality 

Causality refers to what causes death. Until children have a factual understanding of this, they may blame themselves if, for instance, the family dog dies of old age − believing it’s all their fault because they forgot to do something like take the dog for a walk. 

Dark tourism often intersects with the developmental understanding of death in ways that have a potentially significant impact on kids. Exposure to sites and exhibits that memorialize death or showcase the darker side of life can educate, illuminate, or scare the living daylights out of kids and leave them in a state of prolonged anxiety. Dark tourism can offer special insights that help a child make welcome progress toward the next stage of development. Or it can confuse a child whose grasp of death isn’t sufficiently developed. It all depends on the individual needs and understanding of the child, and how dark tourism is presented to them.

The goal of this website and those who contribute to it is to learn about those potential effects with the goal of ensuring that children who visit dark tourism sites have healthy, age-appropriate emotional, psychological, and educational experiences. That knowledge will benefit not only children and their caregivers and teachers, but also members of the tourism industry responsible for curating, designing, and marketing dark tourism sites and exhibits.